I was planning a trip to Japan last week and figured I could just grab a hostel bed a few weeks out like I do in Europe. Nope. Everything under $50 a night was completely sold out from March through May. I dug into some hostel booking stats and apparently Tokyo only has like 200 hostel beds total for millions of visitors. Ended up paying double for a capsule hotel near Shinjuku. Has anyone else hit this wall with popular Asian cities?
I spent two years wondering why my peaks kept falling flat in Houston humidity, then a pastry chef at a competition told me glass holds grease no matter how clean you think it is, has anyone else noticed a difference switching materials?
I used to think graded comics were a waste of money for like 8 years. I only bought raw copies and kept them in bags and boards in a short box under my bed. Then last summer I picked up a CGC 9.8 copy of Ultimate Fallout #4 for $600 at a show in Denver because I got tired of squinting at raw copies trying to figure out if they were really 9.8s. After I sold it for $1,200 six months later I started buying almost everything graded. Now I feel like I wasted years being a snob about it. Has anyone else switched camps on this and regretted waiting so long?
I was working at a Best Buy in Austin last summer when a guy came in screaming about a laptop he bought 45 days ago. He told me his kid dropped it and cracked the screen, but he insisted it was a defect and started crying right at the counter. I processed the return anyway, but now I wonder how many people I turned away too quickly before that.
I picked up a roll of 10 year old Kodak Gold 200 from a thrift store for $2. Shot it on a sunny Saturday at the park near my house. When I got the scans back, half the frames had faint double images of things that weren't there. Turns out expired film can develop weird latent image retention if it's been stored hot. Anyone else had expired film do something totally unexpected like that?
I bought a 6-piece packing cube set for $40 last summer thinking it was a steal for my carry-on only trip to Chicago. By the second trip, the zippers were getting stuck and one seam split open, spilling my socks inside my bag. Has anyone else had cheap packing cubes crap out on them like that?
I was prepping for a 10-day salvage job on an old tugboat off the Norfolk coast. The company gave me two options for neck dams: a standard KM 37 or a Divex Ultima. I went with the KM because I'd used it before. First dive down to 90 feet, the seal held fine but after about 3 hours I started getting a wicked cold water trickle down my back. The other diver on the crew had the Divex and said his stayed bone dry the whole shift. Has anyone else had issues with the KM neck dam leaking on longer dives at depth? I'm thinking of switching for the next job.
I was reading through some poultry science journal my wife gets for her 4-H stuff and found out chickens remember humans and other birds for months. Has anyone else noticed their flock acting different around certain neighbors versus family members?
I was trying to fix a broken bamboo stake in the potting soil aisle when the bottle exploded in my grip and glued my palm to the green plastic pole for like 10 minutes until an employee brought acetone. Has anyone else had a random DIY project turn into a minor medical emergency for no reason?
I used to think one good cleanse was enough post-procedure until a client broke out with these tiny bumps 3 days later and I pieced it together. Was I the only one missing this or do some of you swear by a single pass just fine?